Kitchenaid Do You Colour Your Fondant In It?
Decorating By MustloveDogs Updated 3 Jun 2014 , 4:52pm by Arsherin
Help! I have a kp2670 kitchenaid mixer which I bought just to mix wilton colour pastes into my pettinice fondant.
This is now the 3rd time that the mixer has died doing this.. it is now smoking in my kitchen!
I wanted to ask you all if anyone else mixes their fondant colours in using it.
I know a lot of you use it for buttercream, mixing cakes and making mmf, but I need someone who uses it with already made fondant and can your KA handle that workload or not?????????
thanks
Unfortunately, I think old fashioned elbow grease is the only way to work color into your pre-made fondant!
I agree, I think kneading it in by hand is probably the best way to do it. I'd be afraid of burning up the engine of my KA. Besides, it's kind of therapeudic!
I think kneading it yourself is the only way. I have my eight year old daughter and her friends help with coloring premade fondant. It is an activity they can do without supervision! Even making your own marshmellow fondant is best done by hand, unless you want to redecorate your kitchen, house and/or county with powdered sugar patterns! Skip the KA where fondant is concerned!
I do it all the time with my kitchen aid. I grease the bowl and dough hook with crisco. It work well actually but you need to do this ahead of time because it incorporates tons of air. Letting it sit helps.
The thing is I bought this kitchenaid at the suggestion of a major cake supply company here in Australia. I told her what I wanted to do and she advised me to purchase this particular model of KA for that exact purpose- soley to colour premade fondant. She even listed how one of her ladies that makes the icing flowers for her uses a 4qt KA to colour her 2kg batches of premade fondant.
I am just beginning to lose confidence in KA's due to the fact that it has "died" 3 times now doing what I bought it for.
I wasn't sure if anyone else out there uses it for this purpose too?
It is a commercial mixer and it saves me heaps of time and potential RSI to colour my icing for me. But I am not sure if it really can handle this workload.
I have a 4 1/2 quart mixer. I have had it for three or four years and it is soooo nice! Just ma and my little old mixer!
There are several threads here about people burning out their KA mixers on making MMF (even though some instructions say to use it) and regular fondant. I had a horrible experience myself. Don't use a KA. Even if it does work, it will wear out your machine quickly. Mixing colors or making fondant by hand is the best way.
I use mine to do bread also and when fodant has been kneaded it has a simialr consistancy to bread before the first rise. I have never had a problem using it for fondant or mmf. I do not mix a ton at a time--two pounds at most.
I am just beginning to lose confidence in KA's due to the fact that it has "died" 3 times now doing what I bought it for.
I don't know if this is a fair assessment - like buying a small economy car and losing confidence in it after blowing up three engines trying to drag race with it!
Maybe it's time to talk to the lady who recommended the mixer for this purpose. I have a 4 1/2 qt mixer, and I don't think that 2 kg of fondant would even fit in the bowl, much less leave room for mixing. Is it possible that she just wanted to sell you the mixer, and was exaggerating a bit on its capabilities?
Laura.
I am only using the dough hook and mixing only on level 2 as advised.
I have also checked 3 times with Peter Mcinnes - the kitchenaid sellers for australia and they also recommend this particular model for exactly the purpose I do, so I am not actually overusing it per their advice, but I wondered if anyone else does use theirs as I do because I don't think it really CAN handle this job, despite what the kitchenaid suppliers say, as well as the cake supply company.
My question is that is it a higher wattage mixer or is it the lower wattage one. I wouldn't use mine to do it because it isn't the lowest wattage but not the highest either. The more wattage the more power.
Just last night I had a huge batch of homemade mmf to color into a dark brown...and I didn't want to waste time getting it to a dark shade. We're talking 2.5 pounds of fondant. So what I did was put it in a microwave safe bowl. Added about 2 teaspoons of water on top. Put it in the microwave for a minute. Took it out. Stirred it around and popped it back in for 30 seconds. Took it out and added my brown food gel. Stirred it and put it back in the microwave until it was melted and I was able to mix the color completely. I let it sit out at room temperature until it cooled completely. And it didn't even stick to the sides of the bowl! It came out really clean. So I kneeded it back into a good consistency, adding cornstarch to "stiffen" it a bit. And WALLAH! Dark brown fondant with not so much elbow-grease lol I'm going to do this more often with large batches of fondant that need to be colored. :) I hope this helps!
Note: I didn't try this with store bought fondant so I'm not sure how that would work in the microwave...I only tried it on homemade MMF fondant :)
moydear77- I agree with you. I use mine for a breads a lot! Especially kneading. But I think you as well as I know when kneading bread with our KA not to have it on higher than a four or a five. Any higher and I know it will burn the motor out. When kneading mine I take my time and start out at a one, then increase the speed to a two, after a few minutes it's at a four. It works well for me this way and my KA is still in FABULOUS shape. I'm pretty sure this goes for fondant as well.
I wouldn't use the KA to knead in color in fondant unless you are making it from scratch and kneading it to create it. Several reasons. The main one being it works better to hand mix it in so you can see what areas need more color. and gently warm it up JUST a tad so it is a LITTLE softer.
GOOD LUCK!
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